Hong Kong is neither back nor back to normal :(

  

The sun's struggling to cut through the gloom

that Hong Kong has been under for much of this week

 

For some months now, Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee has been trying to "tell the world the good stories of Hong Kong".  And this was the week which was supposed to show the world that "Hong Kong is back".  But from what I can see, things haven't been quite going to plan, for multiple reasons -- some of which the authorities couldn't have controlled, others of which they could have but opted not to.

 

Earlier this week, we had an international banking summit take place.  As an Al Jazeera report noted: "Hong Kong’s government invited Wall Street’s biggest names to a summit to show the financial hub is open for business after nearly three years of isolation due to pandemic curbs.  Instead, top bank executives’ attendance at the gathering [became] a lightning rod for criticism of China’s human rights record as participants face pressure to speak out about Hong Kong’s disappearing freedoms or stay home."

 

It didn't help matters that Hong Kong's government bent or just dispensed outright with a number of Covid (including "social distancing") regulations for the attendees -- something which got many people thinking of the famous quote in George Orwell's Animal Farm that "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others".  As a New York Times piece noted: "Bankers in town for the Global Financial Leaders’ Investment Summit were told they could skip mandatory quarantine and leave on a private jet if they tested positive for Covid."  And the attendees were pictured maskless at the conference and weren't required to use the Leave Home Safe trac(k)ing app that Hong Kongers have had to use for months now.     

 

But, again quoting the New York Times piece: "[d]espite the special dispensation given to V.I.P.s, many [of the people invited] declined to visit Hong Kong". "At least four top finance executives initially slated to attend the conference this week...  dropped out. They include Blackstone Inc. President Jonathan Gray and Citigroup Inc.’s CEO Jane Fraser, who will no longer attend the conference after contracting COVID-19. The CEO of Barclays, C.S. Venkatakrishnan, also scrapped plans to go." And "[on Tuesday, Capital Group Cos.’ CEO Timothy Armour became the latest chief executive to withdraw from the conference, for health reasons."

 

For a time, it also looked like Hong Kong finance secretary Paul Chan would not be in attendance at the finance summit, thanks to his having contracted Covid on a visit to Saudi Arabia last week.  But instead of being restricted to appearing via Zoom (like was the case for the Fintech financial technology conference which also took place earlier this week -- which attracted just around a little more than half the 20,000 attendees that its organizers had expected), he somehow got adjudged to be okay to attend the finance summit and be maskless for at least part of the time at it!  

 

Something else quite miraculous/against the norm: the finance summit going ahead despite the T8 signal being hoisted as Severe Tropical Storm Nagae came near the city on Wednesday.  (In contrast: M+, which I was planning to visit again, closed -- along with all of the city's other museums and art galleries along with schools, many businesses and such like!)  

 

I'm not sure what good will actually come out of the bankers' summit.  Thus far, the most eye-catching news has involved a senior Chinese securites regulator -- speaking in a pre-recorded interview that was broadcast to the summit (rather than, you know, actually in attendance) -- telling the conference attendees, many of them non-Chinese and from the West, to avoid reading international press coverage of China's economy.  And UBS chairman Colm Kelleher publicly stating -- in the presence of international journalists as well as his peers from such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Blackrock, JP Morgan Chase, HSBC and Standard Chartered -- that "We're not reading the American press".

 

And now, today, we have attention turning to another one of those marque events that the Hong Kong government hopes will show that "Hong Kong is back": the Hong Kong Rugby Sevens.  Only, well... take a look at the pictures showing sparse crowds and large warning signs (with regards to such as masks being required when you're not eating or drinking), and the reports of people who couldn't get into the stadium because they don't have a "green" vaccine code and you tell me if Hong Kong is really back to normal.  Oh, and umbrellas are banned from Hong Kong Stadium, the venue of the Hong Kong Rugby Sevens, too!  

 

Also, don't forget the police presence.  In the words of HK Twitterverse member Panda Bernstein: "It’s the National Anthem Enforcers, a perfectly normal thing that every country has"!  As journalist Ryan Ho Kilpatrick -- a Hong Konger now based out of Taiwan -- explains for those who didn't realize: The "[p]olice are there to enforce the [national] anthem law passed in 2020 after the opposition was expelled [as part of the pro-democracy protest crackdown]. It punishes anyone who disrespects the [People's Republic of China] anthem with up to 3 years in jail. [Hong Kong Police Force] deployment to enforce patriotism at sporting events is the new normal" now. :(